Various Artists - The Best of Broadway - The American Musical (PBS Series)

Artist: Various Artists Title: The Best of Broadway - The American Musical (PBS Series) Label: Decca Broadway UPC: 602498635360 Price: $18.98

Various Artists - The Best of Broadway - The American Musical (PBS Series) Track Listing

1 - There's No Business Like Show Business
2 - Swanee
3 - Ol' Man River
4 - You're The Top
5 - Oklahoma
6 - Luck Be A Lady
7 - I Could Have Danced All Night
8 - America
9 - My Favorite Things
10 - People
11 - If I Were A Rich Man
12 - The Impossible Dream
13 - Cabaret
14 - Let The Sunshine In
15 - Send In The Clowns
16 - One
17 - Tomorrow
18 - Memory
19 - The Music Of The Night
20 - Good Morning Baltimore
21 - Defying Gravity

About Various Artists - The Best of Broadway - The American Musical (PBS Series)

A companion to the fabulous PBS series, the 21-song, 77-minute The Best of "Broadway: The American Musical" provides about as good a single-disc compilation as anyone could hope for. (There's also a five-CD version.) What sets it apart from so many other "best of Broadway" collections is its breadth--because it had access to a variety of record-label vaults it doesn't have to try to disguise gaps by using revivals or solo recordings. Here you get all the authentic stuff, including: Paul Robeson singing "Ol' Man River" from the first modern American musical, Show Boat; Ethel Merman singing "You're the Top"; the title song from Oklahoma!; Julie Andrews singing "I Could Have Danced All Night" from My Fair Lady; West Side Story's "America"; Betty Buckley singing "Memory" from Cats; Hairspray's "Good Morning Baltimore"; and "Defying Gravity" from Wicked, the newest show discussed in the PBS series. And it's hard to argue with the songwriters represented: Irving Berlin, Jerome Kern, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein, Frank Loesser, Lerner and Loewe, Leonard Bernstein, Bock and Harnick, Kander and Ebb, Stephen Sondheim, and Andrew Lloyd Webber, among others. Obviously, no single-disc compilation could ever please everyone (did we really need two ALW songs?), but as a sampler intended for people who watched the series and want to hear more of the Great White Way, The Best of "Broadway: The American Musical" can't be topped. --David Horiuchi

Various Artists - The Best of Broadway - The American Musical (PBS Series) Reviews

Average Rating: 4.5

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Rating: 5
If you like a variety of musicals, you would like this CD. If you have never heard Paul Roberson sing, you are in for a treat. Its also a chance to hear singers who are known for certain songs, sing other materials. This is refreshing to me. Overall, very enjoyable collection.

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Rating: 5
Here are the tracks that are only availalbe on the single disc sampler version of this set The Best of Broadway - The American Musical (PBS Series)

5 Oklahoma from Oklahoma
8 America from West Side Story
13 Cabaret from Cabaret

Of course this five disc version has many many more tracks than the sampler but the above three are only on the sampler.
Great set though!

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Rating: 4
The range of songs chosen for this compilation is awesome. Just what I was looking for.

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Rating: 3
Note that some of the recordings are not in stereo. While I expected that for some of the very old songs recorded in the 1920's to 1940's, I thought that the songs from the 1950's and more recent would have been recorded in stereo.

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Rating: 4
This is a pretty good compilation, but I have to wonder at some of the choices that went into it.
"Good Morning Baltimore" is almost the least impressive song from Hairspray. "You Can't Stop the Beat" was a much more anthemic song from that show.
I agree that it's too bad Les Mis didn't make it in. I would have traded that for anything Sondheim, although that's a personal preference :) .
Still, the opportunity to hear the original performers and orchestras perform these works, all in one place, is a great deal.